Speaker 1: Novel.
Speaker 2: I knew I wanted to be a writer very early
Speaker 2: in life. By the time I was seven years old,
Speaker 2: there were no more dreams of being a cowgirl in
Speaker 2: outer space. Instead, I pretended to smoke pencils over imaginary typewriters.
Speaker 2: I've always been a voracious reader, and I soon gravitated
Speaker 2: toward the writers of the Harlem Renaissance, that cultural movement
Speaker 2: of the nineteen twenties and thirties that established Black Americans
Speaker 2: as taste makers, especially in regards to the arts. During
Speaker 2: one of my more rebellious moments of junior high school,
Speaker 2: I wrote out the full poem of Harlem Renaissance writer
Speaker 2: Claude McKay's If We Must Die on my homeroom's chalkboard.
Speaker 2: If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Speaker 2: hunted and pinned in an inglorious spot. It's a poem
Speaker 2: of defiance. Basically, if we go out, we're not going
Speaker 2: out like a bunch of suckers. That day in home room,
Speaker 2: I was fascinated by this era of the past, and
Speaker 2: it was helping me aspire toward an imaginary future for myself.
Speaker 2: I saw the Harlem Renaissance as the epitome of what
Speaker 2: an artist community could look like.
Speaker 3: I'd like to tell people, welcome to Harlem. Are you
Speaker 3: a local Harlem?
Speaker 2: Every now and then? Because there is it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's like an hour on the train. Even though I've
Speaker 2: been living in New York for over six years, I've
Speaker 2: yet to do any official tourist thing like take a
Speaker 2: guided walk through Harlem. So I went uptown and let
Speaker 2: a professional show me around.
Speaker 3: I like to tell people no place in the world
Speaker 3: has contributed more to American history and world history than Harlem.
Speaker 2: When I first cut up to my tour guide, Carolyn Johnson,
Speaker 2: I knew I'd be in good hands. Tall and slim,
Speaker 2: Carolyn was dressed simply for a warm day of walking, jeans,
Speaker 2: a light denim jacket, and sensible shoes. She was on
Speaker 2: the phone ironing out a little business wrinkle while indicating
Speaker 2: I should approach her, and while speaking to folks passing by.
Speaker 3: Excuse me, miss, I'm doing yourself.
Speaker 2: She radiated all the energy of a quintessential multitasking New Yorker.
Speaker 1: And you're born to raise a hall.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I couldn't think of living any fresh outghborhood.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was really excited about the tour, but also
Speaker 2: afraid I'd be disappointed. Time and gentrification aren't friendly to
Speaker 2: historically black neighborhoods. I didn't want to see a slick
Speaker 2: coffee shop that doesn't take care standing in the place
Speaker 2: where the activist Marcus Garvey may have delivered Pan African speeches,
Speaker 2: or where writer Nella Larson may have once typed out
Speaker 2: her manuscript for passing. Instead, I got to see that
Speaker 2: a lot of buildings remain virtually unchanged, like the building
Speaker 2: where activist poet James Walden Johnson and his brother Jay
Speaker 2: Rosamond Johnson wrote Lift Every Voice and sing.
Speaker 3: James Weldon Johnson, Yes, Olivia.
Speaker 2: It took my breath to learn that the ashes of
Speaker 2: Langston Hughes, one of the most prominent voices of the
Speaker 2: Harlem Renaissance, are intereered in the floor of the Schomberg
Speaker 2: Center for Research in Black Culture.
Speaker 3: In between Lenox and Seventh we had over one hundred
Speaker 3: and thirty restaurants, bar speakeasy, east, churches and establishments.
Speaker 2: I saw the home of jazz pioneer Fat Swaller, the
Speaker 2: studio of the great photographer James vandersey So.
Speaker 3: On this street. Down the block is where Billy Holliday
Speaker 3: was to stop, but it's still standing. It's not as
Speaker 3: Phill's place today Bill Factory.
Speaker 2: As the tour continued, I realized I was hearing a
Speaker 2: lot of names I already knew, and not the one
Speaker 2: I was hoping to learn more about. I was walking
Speaker 2: the same streets Eunice Hunting once walked, but my tour
Speaker 2: guide hadn't mentioned her yet. Where was Eunice?
Speaker 3: Do you have one hundred and thirty third Street? Swing Street?
Speaker 3: They called it Jungle Alley? And that's what a real
Speaker 3: party was.
Speaker 2: What does she get into as a young woman fresh
Speaker 2: out of college?
Speaker 1: Where did she sweat her hair out?
Speaker 2: I came to Harlem hoping for a glimpse of Unice
Speaker 2: and the neighborhood she moved to in the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 2: which quickly became her playground and the vibrancy of her youth,
Speaker 2: and would go on to be her home for the
Speaker 2: majority of her life. But amongst this celebration of Harlem's past,
Speaker 2: the ghost of her memory seemed determined to stay just
Speaker 2: out of reach. That is until I asked my tour guide,
Speaker 2: Carolyn about a particular building four O nine edgecomb Avenue.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a stop on the tour.
Speaker 3: Well, we can go up there. You can take that
Speaker 3: two bus right up there, drop you right off in
Speaker 3: front of it.
Speaker 1: Of course Carolyn knew of it.
Speaker 3: They're a good marshalltt W de Boys, Walter White. That
Speaker 3: was like the eight building.
Speaker 2: Ever since the nineteen twenties, the movers and shakers of
Speaker 2: Harlem had lived at four O nine Edgecomb Avenue. One
Speaker 2: day that would include Unice two. When I think about Unis,
Speaker 2: it can feel like someone is humming a few bars
Speaker 2: of a song I used to know, but now I
Speaker 2: can't remember the lyrics. But here finally was a glimpse
Speaker 2: of Unis, like always perpetually just around the next corner,
Speaker 2: out of reach and a little overshadowed by her neighbors,
Speaker 2: but still here amidst the Harlem renaissance.
Speaker 3: Here, this is where we live. This is where it
Speaker 3: all happened.
Speaker 2: From the teams at iHeartRadio and Novel, I'm Nicole Perkins
Speaker 2: and this is the Godmother Episode two Harlem Czarina tucked
Speaker 2: between funeral notices and municipal updates of a nineteen twenty
Speaker 2: three edition of The Yonkers Herald as a small article.
Speaker 2: It's an announcement. Nine thousand invitations have been issued for
Speaker 2: the largest black wedding ever held in the country. The
Speaker 2: bride to be is the prominent and extremely wealthy socialite,
Speaker 2: Miss May Walker Robinson. Her grandmother, Madame C. J. Walker,
Speaker 2: is a hair care product pioneer and the first American
Speaker 2: female entrepreneur of any race to become a millionaire. The
Speaker 2: Walker Robinson's were a big deal in Harlem nineteen twenty three,
Speaker 2: and the wedding makes headlines across the country, especially in
Speaker 2: the Black press.
Speaker 4: All of these other black institutions of the public sphere
Speaker 4: in the twenties and thirties look to the Black press
Speaker 4: to sort of keep their pulse on what is hot
Speaker 4: and sexy culturally, but also what is hot in terms
Speaker 4: of politics. It's where the stage is being set for
Speaker 4: who the movers and shakers in the society people are.
Speaker 2: Units had been a socialite herself from a young age.
Speaker 2: The Huntings didn't have the Walker Robinson's wealth, but her
Speaker 2: parents were still very much a part of the black
Speaker 2: social elite. In an article from The New York Age
Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty three, there's a picture of May Walker
Speaker 2: Robinson on her wedding day, seated in her wedding dress,
Speaker 2: surrounded by bridesmaids and flower girls in glossy sheer, decadent,
Speaker 2: bright dresses, replete with headdresses and bouquets. And if you
Speaker 2: look closely, there in the back row, along a line
Speaker 2: of other women honored with the role of bridesmaid, second
Speaker 2: from the right, head turned slightly, eyes on something just
Speaker 2: beyond the camera, is Eunice Hunting. It's not clear whether
Speaker 2: Eunice in May would have really been friends, if the
Speaker 2: number of bridesmaids is anything to go by, but her
Speaker 2: inclusion was a mark of her emerging importance in this
Speaker 2: elite circle. Eunice was slotting into the high falutine social
Speaker 2: circle of black women, sometimes referred to as the czarinas
Speaker 2: their every move was covered breath by the Black press
Speaker 2: at the time, read not just by New Yorkers, but
Speaker 2: by black people all across the country.
Speaker 4: Whose wedding were they at, what were they wearing? Where
Speaker 4: did they dine that evening? And in the next breath
Speaker 4: a really cutting line about a choice that they made,
Speaker 4: either politically, professionally or in terms of what they wore.
Speaker 4: Even they have to be exemplars. They're supposed to be exceptional,
Speaker 4: and they're also supposed to be engaging in behaviors that
Speaker 4: help further the race right. There isn't a lot of
Speaker 4: space for people to just be individuals and say, oh,
Speaker 4: I don't care about that race thing over there.
Speaker 2: With William and Addie Hunts and as parents, Unice would
Speaker 2: have been better prepared than most for this kind of pressure.
Speaker 2: She had already lived a truly exceptional life after fleeing
Speaker 2: the terrors of the nineteen oh six Atlanta race massacre.
Speaker 1: As a young.
Speaker 2: Girl, she'd lived in Germany, attended a predominantly white college,
Speaker 2: and graduated with two degrees all by the time she
Speaker 2: arrived in Harlem aged twenty five. It's possible that Unice's
Speaker 2: class and education made her a little sheltered at first.
Speaker 5: I think she.
Speaker 6: Didn't know what to expect in the real world. It
Speaker 6: wasn't a matter of just living in Harlem. It was
Speaker 6: a matter of going out in the community because that
Speaker 6: was her job.
Speaker 2: Pretty soon after graduating, Unice took up a job as
Speaker 2: a social worker with Family Services in New York and
Speaker 2: New Jersey. Work would bring her in contact with a
Speaker 2: whole new sphere of black life.
Speaker 7: By the nineteen twenties, Harlem was referred to as being
Speaker 7: like the capital of the black world.
Speaker 2: All right, so picture it mid nineteen twenties, Harlem. It's
Speaker 2: Sunday morning. Unice Hunting, twenty five years old, a social worker,
Speaker 2: a socialite. She leaves her trendy apartment and walks south
Speaker 2: to one hundred and thirty fifth Street, Or maybe she
Speaker 2: takes the number three train and uses the minute she
Speaker 2: saves to stand in awe of the magic of the
Speaker 2: black mecca that sits before her.
Speaker 8: She would have seen on one corner black communists standing
Speaker 8: on a soapbox talking about the revolution. On the other
Speaker 8: soapbox across the corner, she would have seen traditional politicians
Speaker 8: urging African Americans to leave the Republican Party and come
Speaker 8: join the Democratic Party. On the third street corner, she
Speaker 8: would have seen a religious figure, maybe the guy called
Speaker 8: the Barefoot Prophet, who was telling everyone they better get
Speaker 8: with Jesus right away or they're can be going to Hell.
Speaker 8: And on the fourth corner, those would have been the
Speaker 8: race nationalists.
Speaker 2: The community of Harlem, unlike many of the spaces units
Speaker 2: must have been used to by that time, was full
Speaker 2: of diverse black life.
Speaker 7: You know, Harlem becomes this place where African Americans have
Speaker 7: a chance to remake themselves all over again, securing better jobs,
Speaker 7: better wages, and even housing conditions. Is all really a
Speaker 7: dream from many people.
Speaker 2: But many of those new arria to the neighborhood soon
Speaker 2: found themselves falling into systemic traps which don't sound all
Speaker 2: that different from the racism Unis and her family had
Speaker 2: left in the South.
Speaker 7: Those dreams are complicated by Jim Crow North. They're complicated
Speaker 7: by police violence. They are complicated by the thread of
Speaker 7: public violence on the street.
Speaker 2: Between nineteen ten and nineteen thirty, the number of Black
Speaker 2: people living in just that one and a half square
Speaker 2: mile of central Harlem increased eight times over, from a
Speaker 2: little over eighteen thousand to nearly one hundred and fifty thousand.
Speaker 2: The Big Apple offered new beginnings and opportunities.
Speaker 7: There are countless shops, clubs, tenement housing buildings. Harlem is
Speaker 7: kind of like a melting pot.
Speaker 2: So as Unice walks up one hundred and thirty fifth
Speaker 2: Street that Sunday morning, she can see every facet of
Speaker 2: black life on one corner. From the black elite and
Speaker 2: fur coats knew ready to wear dresses off the rack.
Speaker 6: People at the time got very dressed.
Speaker 2: Up, working class women and freshly laundered hand me downs
Speaker 2: and darned.
Speaker 7: Stockings, donning the best that they have in their closet.
Speaker 2: All the good time boys and girls and their flashiest
Speaker 2: silks and softest hankies.
Speaker 6: It was part of the whole atmosphere where you wore
Speaker 6: wonderful clothes. You know, you wanted impress each other.
Speaker 2: When I think about the hair of nineteen twenties Harlem,
Speaker 2: I think of the expression fried died and laid to
Speaker 2: the side. Keeping straight hair was a matter of pride
Speaker 2: and professionalism, regardless of the kind of job you had.
Speaker 2: Fingerways and big body bobs were all the rage. Kinks
Speaker 2: and tight curls weren't appreciated as much as they are today.
Speaker 7: We also see women dawning like not necessarily afros, but
Speaker 7: natural hair meaning no chemicals, and you may see women
Speaker 7: with pressed hair.
Speaker 2: I avoided moving to New York for as long as
Speaker 2: I could. I didn't think my country self could handle
Speaker 2: all the excitement. Sometimes I can't, but I hope Eunice
Speaker 2: fully enjoyed all that nighttime. Harlem had to offer with
Speaker 2: red lipstick, finger waves, and a breezy dress made to
Speaker 2: flutter around the Charleston and Lindy hop all night. Moving
Speaker 2: to Harlem, especially at this point in this history and
Speaker 2: at the age Unis was, must have felt exciting. What
Speaker 2: would those communists, preachers, partiers, and fur coat wearing socialites
Speaker 2: rushing by have seen when they looked back at Unice.
Speaker 2: I like to think she was the kind of young
Speaker 2: woman who yearned to be at the center of all
Speaker 2: this action.
Speaker 1: I like to think that she felt herself to be
Speaker 1: at the foot of a great hill.
Speaker 2: But did she know yet which path would lead her
Speaker 2: into her new life? For now, Unice's parents had offered
Speaker 2: her a road map of sorts, but the glamor of
Speaker 2: the Harlem Renaissance must have exerted a powerful pull. There's
Speaker 2: a writer of the Harlem Renaissance era that reminds me
Speaker 2: of Unus Zora nil Hurston and Zora nil Hurston's fiction.
Speaker 2: With her anthropological attention to dialogue, I found images of
Speaker 2: the women elders in my family. She made me want
Speaker 2: to know more about my family member's internal worlds and
Speaker 2: wonder what they may have seen her novel. Their eyes
Speaker 2: were watching. God made me realize my elders had whole
Speaker 2: lives before I knew them. It seems silly, but when
Speaker 2: you're young, you know your grandmother is grandmama, and never
Speaker 2: think about the idea that at some point in her
Speaker 2: life she may have taken a much younger lover who
Speaker 2: filled her with renewed passion. Like in the book with
Speaker 2: Zora Neil Hurston, it wasn't just her writings I latched onto.
Speaker 2: It was also the story of her life during the
Speaker 2: Harlem Renaissance. She was a prolific writer an anthropologist, but
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty she died, broke in obscurity, and was
Speaker 2: buried in an unmarked grave. In nineteen seventy three, renowned
Speaker 2: writer Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, located her
Speaker 2: grave and helped bring Hurston's literary career back to the
Speaker 2: public eye, and it stayed there. How could someone like Zora,
Speaker 2: who was once one of the most popular Black women
Speaker 2: in the country disappear from history so easily. Unics and
Speaker 2: Zora were both outspoken and determined, traits not often appreciated
Speaker 2: in black women. But there's another comparison between the two.
Speaker 2: Ever since her arrival in Harlem in the mid twenties,
Speaker 2: units hadn't just been absorbing the sights and sounds and
Speaker 2: smells of her surroundings. She took to her typewriter with thin,
Speaker 2: ivory sheets of paper and began writing about them.
Speaker 9: Nineteen twenty five. The Corner by Unice Carter. My friend
Speaker 9: lives in the house on the corner. She lives high
Speaker 9: above the street, in a doll's house of white enamel
Speaker 9: and soft blues, with lovely old furniture and oriental rugs
Speaker 9: of faded brilliance on dark polished floors, in a miniature
Speaker 9: home with a real fireplace and polished grasses and flowers
Speaker 9: all about in crystal bowls. She lives high up there,
Speaker 9: but below are the street and the avenue. And one
Speaker 9: fall night, as I waited for her in the loveliest
Speaker 9: room of all, I turned from watching the fire flicker
Speaker 9: and dart across the room, and great chrysanthemums casting sleeping
Speaker 9: shadows on the wall. I turned from this and watched
Speaker 9: the street. It was alive with light and sound, the
Speaker 9: light and sound of the city, the Black City.
Speaker 2: The piece you just heard is called The Corner. It
Speaker 2: was written and published in nineteen twenty five. In it,
Speaker 2: Eunice is writing an insider's account, documenting the sensual experiences
Speaker 2: of living in the neighborhood, sights and sounds that might
Speaker 2: go unnoticed by visiting outsiders. Unice's early writings offer a
Speaker 2: unique perspective to who she was. Her professional and activist
Speaker 2: writings show a determined, educated, even commanding woman, and when
Speaker 2: you add the wings of creativity, her.
Speaker 6: Short stories were wonderful. They were celebrated by some of
Speaker 6: the most prominent writers in Harlem. She for instance, would
Speaker 6: go to some of the cocktail gatherings and it was
Speaker 6: important to her because you couldn't just show up, you
Speaker 6: had to be invited. People would get dressed up. These
Speaker 6: were the top artists of the era, and she became
Speaker 6: part of that because of her writing.
Speaker 2: Eunice Hunting is not a name I remember reading about
Speaker 2: in the library. I'd like to think that it's because
Speaker 2: the era was so full of great talent and the
Speaker 2: world was moving so fast at the time that some
Speaker 2: people fell through history as cracks. But in this moment
Speaker 2: of history, it feels especially important to actively remember black luminaries.
Speaker 2: When I was growing up, Zora nil Hurston's their eyes
Speaker 2: were watching. God was taught in sophomore English classes.
Speaker 1: All over America.
Speaker 2: But as I speak, Black history is being erased from
Speaker 2: schools across the country. Who's to say that Zora nil
Speaker 2: Hurston's work won't be buried again. Writer's works frequently get
Speaker 2: lost to the ravages of time, and I wonder if
Speaker 2: Unics used her fiction, her articles, and reviews as a
Speaker 2: way of carving her name into history's tree trunk. Unice
Speaker 2: was here. Maybe I'm projecting because as a writer myself,
Speaker 2: I hope my work will last. And that's someone one hundred,
Speaker 2: two hundred years from now will scroll through the library
Speaker 2: catalog shipped into their left pink finger, probably and see
Speaker 2: my name and know I existed. In nineteen twenty five,
Speaker 2: Unics had another piece of writing published, but this time,
Speaker 2: unlike the Corner, it was an essay, and unlike the Corner,
Speaker 2: it shows that Unice was looking out to a world
Speaker 2: beyond Harlem. It was called breaking Through.
Speaker 9: Harlem is a modern ghetto. True, that is a contradiction
Speaker 9: in terms, but prejudice has ringed this group with invisible
Speaker 9: lines and bars. Within the bars, you will find a
Speaker 9: small city, self sufficient, complete in itself, a riot of
Speaker 9: color and personality, a medley of song and tears, a
Speaker 9: canvas of browns and golds and flaming reds, and yet bound.
Speaker 9: There is also some tugging from without at the ropes
Speaker 9: that bind the ghetto. It is the result of the
Speaker 9: efforts of the whites, because of curiosity, self interest, a
Speaker 9: spasm of self righteousness, or very rarely genuine interest, to
Speaker 9: establish a contact with those within the ghetto.
Speaker 2: In the essay, Eunice argues in favor of those.
Speaker 9: Who often appear in the first instance to be deserting
Speaker 9: the race.
Speaker 2: And talks about those striving to be the first to
Speaker 2: accomplish something.
Speaker 9: Whereas many who break the bonds are actuated solely by
Speaker 9: the desire to get the best for themselves in spite
Speaker 9: of prescription, a few realize that they are blazing a
Speaker 9: trail that others of the race may follow. The essay
Speaker 9: goes on there is another side of the picture.
Speaker 1: It is a tale of long.
Speaker 9: Dark years, of dismal failure, of brave struggles to rise
Speaker 9: above mediocrity, of bitter fights for existence, A tale twisted
Speaker 9: with heartaches and heartbreaks, a tale drenched in sweat and blood,
Speaker 9: but still shot Through with flashes of sunlight upon pure gold.
Speaker 9: It takes rare courage to fight a fight that more
Speaker 9: often than not ends in death, poverty, or prostitution of genius.
Speaker 9: But it is to these who make this fight, despite
Speaker 9: the tremendous odds, despite the deterring pessimism of those who
Speaker 9: see the tangle of prejudice that surrounds the ghetto, a
Speaker 9: hopeless barrier, that we must look for the breaking of
Speaker 9: the bonds now linked together by ignorance and misunderstanding.
Speaker 1: It's a righteous essay.
Speaker 2: It feels autobiographical and maybe even a bit self aggrandizing
Speaker 2: and smug, like she was telling her readers get like me, kids,
Speaker 2: as if you can. But it seems to show Unice
Speaker 2: starting to turn away from the.
Speaker 9: Riot of color and personality.
Speaker 2: To pursue other goals. You can tell from reading Breaking
Speaker 2: Through that Unice was deeply concerned with the idea of
Speaker 2: her own legacy, and it's interesting to think about it
Speaker 2: in the context of where Unice's life was at in
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty five when she wrote this as a twenty
Speaker 2: six year old. You see, she did not sign the
Speaker 2: essay Breaking Through with the name Unice Hunting. She signed
Speaker 2: it Eunice Hunting Carter because by nineteen twenty five, Eunice
Speaker 2: was married.
Speaker 6: She lived in a society where women married and had children.
Speaker 6: That was the way it was.
Speaker 2: Writer, social worker, socialite, and now wife. But these roles
Speaker 2: weren't keeping her satisfied.
Speaker 6: I think Unis did feel very strongly about being role modeled.
Speaker 6: She wrote about it, how it's very important to accomplish
Speaker 6: so people who come beyond you know, this is a woman,
Speaker 6: this is a black person, and she's very successful. I
Speaker 6: can be that way too.
Speaker 2: By this point in Unice's life, she's clearly been formulating
Speaker 2: a plan. Looking back now, Breaking Through can be seen
Speaker 2: as a roadmap she'd written for herself. It outlined a
Speaker 2: strategy that Unice would continually use throughout her life, especially
Speaker 2: the decisions she would make in the final years of
Speaker 2: the Roaring twenties. She wanted to be different. She wanted
Speaker 2: to be a trailblazer. It's nineteen twenty three. Unice meets
Speaker 2: a wealthy man and his name is Lyle Carter.
Speaker 6: He was born and raised in Barbados.
Speaker 2: Lyle arrived in New York City in nineteen thirteen and
Speaker 2: evolved into a prominent figure in Harlem too, in a
Speaker 2: more understated way than Eunice. He'd built his wealth through
Speaker 2: a successful dental practice. Eunice married Lyle in nineteen twenty four.
Speaker 6: She and her husband lived in this beautiful house in Harlem,
Speaker 6: and they liked to entertain.
Speaker 2: Their wedding had been a small, intimate affair, a far
Speaker 2: cry from the lavish May Robinson Walker extravaganza.
Speaker 6: A year or two later, they have a child.
Speaker 2: They named that child Lyle Carter Junior. Eunice's mother, Addie,
Speaker 2: when touring the country for work, had written extensively on
Speaker 2: the roles and responsibilities of black women in American society,
Speaker 2: their roles both at home and in public, while their
Speaker 2: husbands lead the family. And Unice's work does take a
Speaker 2: back seat to Lyle's at this time in the nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty five senses, while she's publishing writing as well as
Speaker 2: holding down a social work career. Lyle is listed as
Speaker 2: a dentist and Unice's occupation is simply housewife. I imagine
Speaker 2: this must have rubbed Unis the wrong way. Eunice and
Speaker 2: Lyle would hold social events together and they'd often have
Speaker 2: people over.
Speaker 6: I mean the parties they had in their house. That
Speaker 6: meant a lot to them. I think that bound them
Speaker 6: their devotion to Harlem. They were very well known in
Speaker 6: the community. As you can imagine, the pair of them
Speaker 6: looked good together. On the surface, it probably seemed ideal,
Speaker 6: Eunice and Lyle entertaining the who's who of the Harlem
Speaker 6: Renaissance in their family home. Did Ornel Hurston ever pop by?
Speaker 6: But scratch that surface, there were rumors that Eunice had
Speaker 6: had an affair at some point with the musician. One
Speaker 6: of the writers of the era mentioned in a letter
Speaker 6: that she thought Unice might be gay, which who knows.
Speaker 6: I mean, those were the rumors, But what do they
Speaker 6: speak to. They speak to the fact that maybe her
Speaker 6: marriage was not the best.
Speaker 2: For all of her mother ADDIE's advocacy on the role
Speaker 2: of black women in America, her daughter, Eunice Hunt and
Speaker 2: Carter still yearned for more, thanks in part to Addie.
Speaker 6: In many ways, she was a maverick, and Addie her
Speaker 6: mother instilled this in her because Addie was a bit
Speaker 6: of a maverick.
Speaker 2: In her own time. As a young mother, Addie had
Speaker 2: traveled the Deep South alone documenting atrocities. She'd gone to
Speaker 2: Germany with her young family to pursue her own education,
Speaker 2: and later she'd returned to Europe to advocate for black
Speaker 2: soldiers on the front lines of World War One, all remarkable,
Speaker 2: exceptional feats. She never let being a mother stand in
Speaker 2: the way of her ambition, and neither would her daughter.
Speaker 10: Unice was doing social work, she was writing, she married,
Speaker 10: and she had a son who was a good mother,
Speaker 10: a good wife. But I think she wanted to act
Speaker 10: on the world and to be influential and known in
Speaker 10: a different way than she would have been as a
Speaker 10: writer and a social worker.
Speaker 6: So this was a tension I think in her whole life,
Speaker 6: because she was very well educated, she was very smart.
Speaker 5: And she desired to make a greater contribution, to have
Speaker 5: a greater impact.
Speaker 2: By nineteen twenty seven, Unice was twenty eight years old
Speaker 2: and now on the inside looking outside of the Black city,
Speaker 2: and her experiences had made Unis almost uniquely prepared for
Speaker 2: the consequences of the decision she made next.
Speaker 5: Eunice was able to venture into the white realm.
Speaker 2: In nineteen twenty seven, with a young child and a
Speaker 2: fledgling writing career, Eunice decided to go back to school, law.
Speaker 11: School, social work, was very important work, but there were
Speaker 11: a lot of women and black women doing social work
Speaker 11: at the time, and that was not the case at
Speaker 11: all in law.
Speaker 2: From this point in her life forward, Eunice Hunt and
Speaker 2: Carter would leave writing behind. She would never publish another
Speaker 2: piece of creative writing.
Speaker 10: I wouldn't be surprised if she just felt like, Okay,
Speaker 10: I'm leaving that part of my life behind and We're
Speaker 10: going to become a lawyer, or just stop because she
Speaker 10: didn't have time to do it anymore.
Speaker 11: Law was a place where she could really distinguish herself.
Speaker 6: Although she had to have known it was going to
Speaker 6: be an uphill climb.
Speaker 2: And Unis isn't the only one about to undergo a
Speaker 2: major transition. As the Roaring twenties start to draw to
Speaker 2: a close, Harlem itself is changing, and as it does,
Speaker 2: a different side of this world is about to come
Speaker 2: into view. Units may have thought she'd seen a lot
Speaker 2: of what Harlem had to offer, the glitz, the glamour,
Speaker 2: the tradition, and the struggle of those she walked alongside.
Speaker 2: But there were other layers to it too. In Harlem
Speaker 2: and across the city, New York's underworld is about to rise.
Speaker 1: Closer to the surface.
Speaker 7: Lucky Luciano, an Italian immigrant, forms these different alliances. This
Speaker 7: is someone who is interested in really expanding his empire.
Speaker 7: So very much like other white racketeers, the millions of
Speaker 7: dollars that they had made during the late nineteen tens
Speaker 7: and throughout the nineteen twenties dries up, so for many
Speaker 7: of them they have to look for new avenues of income.
Speaker 2: That's coming up in episode three of the Godmother. On
Speaker 2: this episode of The Godmother, you heard Carolyn Johnson, my
Speaker 2: Harlem tour guide.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Harlem. That's the name of my company. I'm Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Professor Sarah Jackson.
Speaker 4: I'm a Presidential Associate Professor at the Annaberg School for
Speaker 4: Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and an affiliate with
Speaker 4: the Africana and African American Studies Program.
Speaker 6: Here, I'm Marilyn Greenwald. I'm a professor Emerita of journalism
Speaker 6: at Ohio University, and I'm the author of five biographies,
Speaker 6: including one of Eunice Hunt and Carter.
Speaker 7: My name is Lashawn Harris. I am an associate professor
Speaker 7: of history at Michigan State University in the Department of History.
Speaker 8: I'm Jonathan Gill and I'm a professor of Humanities at
Speaker 8: Amsterdam University College in the Netherlands and the author of Harlem,
Speaker 8: the only complete history uptown Manhattan.
Speaker 1: My name is Leah Carter.
Speaker 10: I am Eunis Carter's great granddaughter. My dad, Stephen Carter,
Speaker 10: wrote the book Invisible, the Forgotten Story of the Black
Speaker 10: woman lawyer who took down America's most famous mobster, and
Speaker 10: I did.
Speaker 1: A lot of the research for that book.
Speaker 5: My name is doctor Clarissa Myrik Harris, and I am
Speaker 5: a tenured professor of Africana Studies at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 2: The Godmother is produced by Novel for iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 2: from Novel, visit novel dot Audio. The Godmother is hosted
Speaker 2: and written by me Nicole Perkins. Our producer is Leona Hammy.
Speaker 2: Additional production from Ajuajima Broumpong, Ronald Young Junior, and Zaiana Yusuf.
Speaker 2: Our editor is Ajua Jima Broumpong. Additional story editing from
Speaker 2: Max O'Brien and Mithi Lely Raw and our researcher is
Speaker 2: Zianna Yusuff. Additional research from Mohammed Ahmed David Waters is
Speaker 2: our executive producer. Field production by Tnito Romani and Pallas Shaw,
Speaker 2: Sound design, mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempsen.
Speaker 2: Our score was written, performed and recorded by Jeff Parker.
Speaker 2: Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters. Production management
Speaker 2: and endless patients from Sharie Houston, Sarah Tobin, and Charlotte Wolfe.
Speaker 2: Fact checking by Fendel Fulton and Dania Suleiman. Story development
Speaker 2: by Madeline Parr, Jess Swinburne, Ziana Yusuff. Willard Foxton is
Speaker 2: our creative director of Development. Special thanks to Leah Carter,
Speaker 2: Stephen Carter, Angela J. Davis, Andrew Fernley, Marilyn Greenwald, Sondra Lebtdy,
Speaker 2: Katherine Godfrey, Nadia Maidie, Amalia Sortland, Sean Glenn, Neil Krish,
Speaker 2: Non Julia Bromberg, Katrina Norvale, Carly Frankel, and all the
Speaker 2: team at w Emmy
Speaker 4: Novel